


Learning Curve

by Spencer5460



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Bisexuality, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 10:26:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11289366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spencer5460/pseuds/Spencer5460
Summary: “Have you ever been with a man?” Blair asked almost imperceptibly, but Jim heard it loud and clear. He instinctively knew he wasn't asking for study purposes.





	Learning Curve

One of the drawbacks of having super sensitized hearing was the fact that Jim often heard what he would rather not. Like now. The soft moans and the creaking of the futon coming from Blair's room - even the increased rate of Blair’s familiar heartbeat - made Jim uncomfortably aware that he was being made privy to an intimate physical exchange between his roommate and a lover. 

Blair and Jim didn't have many rules about overnight guests. They were both healthy males who enjoyed intimate pleasures and mature enough to respect each others' space. Yet it seemed over time that Blair's trysts were having an unwelcome effect on Jim. On the nights Blair invited others to shared his bed, sleep eluded him. His skin felt itchy and hot and he tossed in his sheets. Blood surged to his groin leaving him semi hard. Sometimes he'd get so frustrated he'd jerk himself off like he was fourteen again.

He and Blair had developed exercises for dimming Jim’s senses for the times his special talents became overwhelming, but that night the exercises didn't seem to work. Or maybe Jim just didn't want them to work. Maybe his sentinel abilities were turning him into a sick voyeur. Listening in on his friend's sexual activities. Filling in visuals to go along with the provocative sounds. Blair's long curls falling across his lover's cheek. Vitality and eagerness exuding from his well-formed yet compact body making up for what he lacked in size. 

Jim grabbed his pillow and crushed it to his head in an effort to block out the sensual sounds from below. _‘Christ, how much more can I take?’_ he thought. _‘Maybe this roommate arrangement isn't going to work out after all.’_

He lay awake for hours, then came down the stairs in the morning dreading the thought of running into Blair's overnight companion. Having to make polite conversation while simultaneously pouring orange juice and fighting arousing images in his mind. But staying in his room like a coward didn't suit him. 

His fears were heightened when he heard two separate voices coming from the kitchen, but he became confused at the scene that met him when he walked in. An elegant man dressed in a crisp white shirt that set off a caramel complexion and exotic eyes sat sipping tea across from Blair. The stranger’s eyes lifted above the teacup’s rim and registered definite approval at Jim’s entrance.

"'Morning, Jim," Blair greeted smoothly while Jim pulled up short. “This is Hector Khumalo. He's a visiting lecturer at the university.”

“I, uh,” Jim stammered but Hector rescued him, obviously not new to or uncomfortable with the reaction, by standing and extending his hand. He was only a shade shorter than Jim. 

“Delighted to meet the roommate Blair speaks so fondly of. I’m originally from South Africa, but I’m a citizen of the world you might say,” Hector stated in an accent that reflected his proclaimed status. 

“Yeah, Jim. Hector has fascinating stories about his travels and interactions with all kinds of different societies. I went to his lecture, and well, I couldn’t resist introducing myself afterwards. I figured we’d have a lot in common.” 

_‘Since when?’_ Jim wanted to ask but held his tongue. Who was he to judge what his friend did on his own time? Besides, he’d known Blair had lived an unorthodox life. Up until now, he’d accepted all of Blair’s strange music, odd rituals and eccentric tastes in food. But this? Having sex with a guy? 

The look on Jim’s face must have been easy for Blair to read. He stood up alongside Hector. “Does this bother you?” He gestured between himself and his new lover. “Because if it does . . .“

“No, Chief, of course not.” Jim suddenly felt foolish and diminished. His education had been acquired in steaming jungles and forgotten backwaters, not in marbled lecture halls. He’d been drilled in hand-to-hand combat, not the differing characteristics of cultures. He couldn’t help if his view of life was more practical than philosophical. 

_‘How’d I let myself get mixed up with this liberal neo-hippie anyway?’_ He thought. But instead he just said, “don’t let me disturb you. I’ll pick up something to eat on my way to the precinct.” 

The kitchen felt too small by half. Jim grabbed his jacket by the door. He couldn’t get out of the apartment fast enough.

ooOOoo

All day long Jim was distracted. It was a good thing Blair was busy with classes that day instead of working alongside him. Jim had gotten a Sprite instead of a Coke from the dispenser. He went to 336 Forest instead of 337 to question a prospective witness. He threw a receipt that was important case evidence in the trash and scrambled to fish it out before Captain Banks saw him. The only thing worse than Simon Banks’ perceptive eyes were Blair’s questioning ones that waited for him at home. 

Feelings he couldn’t put into words swirled in his head. He hadn’t really thought much about homosexuality. It was something that impacted others, not him. He’d never known anyone who was gay, or at least he thought he hadn’t. If they were, they’d kept their sexual preferences to themselves. It wasn’t exactly something that came up in polite conversation. 

People theorized whether being gay was natural or the result of some emotional trauma. The thought of Blair being traumatized some way in his past made Jim’s stomach clench and his palms tingle. Jim’s first impulse in confronting any wrongdoing had always been to fight back, with his fists if at all possible. But in this, there was nothing to fight against. The past was untouchable. And he certainly wasn’t about to attack Blair. Blair was his friend. No, he was more than a friend. Actually, he didn’t exactly know _what_ Blair was to him. But from now on, Jim meant to protect him more than ever. What was it Blair had called him? His “Blessed Protector.” Yeah, the squirt had gotten that right. Nothing would ever hurt him again as long as Jim was around. 

ooOOoo

“Jim, we need to talk,” Blair confronted him when he walked through the door late that evening, but Jim waved him off.

“If it’s about Hector, forget it, Chief. Whatever you do in the sack is none of my business.”

“Don’t give me that, ‘guys don’t talk about uncomfortable issues’ routine,” Blair pressed. “Haven’t we gotten past that kind of stuff?”

Blair’s openness was as disconcerting as much as it was endearing. Jim hated that he always seemed the one to be embarrassed when Blair started talking about touchy feelies. Hadn’t he done pretty well with his life before Blair had come along? Except for his strained relationship with his father, that is. And his estrangement from his brother. And his divorce from a pretty terrific woman. Plus his revolving door with every other woman since then.

Jim fell back on the couch in an exaggerated display of fatigue but Blair wasn’t deterred. He sat down alongside him and twisted to face him, tucking his ankle beneath his knee. 

“I guess I should have given you a heads up about Hector. But it just kind of . . . happened. We went out for drinks after his lecture and he came on to me. To tell you the truth, I was pretty flattered. I mean, a guy like that . . . “ Blair let the sentence hang. “Look, most of the time I’m into women, but every now and then I just have this feeling about wanting to be with a guy.”

“And Hector just happened to be the guy?” Jim snapped as he thought of the good-looking, well-spoken and well-dressed man at their kitchen table that morning. He could see where some might it be attracted to him, but something about the man rubbed him the wrong way. Unfortunately, he couldn’t credit his unique abilities to see through to one’s character. Jim knew Blair would trust Jim’s sentinel senses implicitly. But Jim’s vague intuition, maybe not so much. 

“Geeze, Jim. You practically sound jealous,” Blair stated.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just trying to understand.”

“Great,” Blair rolled his eyes. “Now you sound like Naomi.”

“Well, how does your mom feel about that fact that you’re . . . “

Blair filled in the word. “Bisexual, Jim. I’m bisexual. And she feels guilty about it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she thinks that when I hook up with a guy, I’m looking for a father figure. The kind of father figure she could never provide. Not that she didn’t try.” Blair chuffed.

In a way, it made sense to Jim, but in another way it didn’t. Jim was intimately acquainted with how a fractured father-son relationship could mess with someone’s head and make them question themselves. Yet no one seemed more comfortable in their own nerdy, precocious, beguiling skin than Blair Sandburg. But then, Jim had always known exactly who _his_ father was. Blair didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Chief.”

“Don’t be.” Blair gave him a little smile and Jim felt something squeeze tightly inside. In that moment he wished he could be everything Blair needed. Friend, partner, family. But a final thought, lover, froze in his head. When he let it go, he pictured it shattering like an icicle hitting the ground, breaking into a million pieces. 

Blair rose and patted Jim’s thigh, as if to comfort him. “As long as you’re okay with it. We’ll try to be as discreet as possible.”

Jim nodded. He figured if Blair was able to keep Jim’s secrets, he should be able to return the favor.

ooOOoo

Jim pretended not to be bothered in the weeks that followed as Hector Khumalo became a regular guest at the loft. Although both Blair and Hector tried to pull him into scholarly conversations or invite him to join them for dinner, he preferred to give them their space. Frankly, he wished he could stay at a motel rather than risk sensing their midnight interludes, but he knew that would be too obvious. If he was going to be part of Blair’s life, he wanted to be as accepting of his young friend’s quirky lifestyle as possible. 

It wasn’t long before Hector began to make himself at home at the loft even when Blair wasn’t there. He had uncanny timing for calling or showing up whenever Blair had an after hours departmental meeting or was stuck late reviewing papers. Jim tried to keep a casual attitude about the unscheduled drop-ins. But he didn’t like the discomfort he felt under the intense scrutiny of Khumalo’s dark eyes. A shiver ran up his spine that he kept putting off mentioning to Blair. 

“Between keeping up with me and his position at the university, Blair’s a hard man to tie down,” Jim pointed out when Blair’s lover dropped by unannounced for the third time. His spirit of hospitality was wearing thin. 

“A curious choice of words, detective.” Hector walked over to the window and looked down at the street. 

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m just a simple cop. Blair’s the one with the extensive vocabulary.”

When Hector turned and smiled, Jim was reminded of a shark he saw once while SCUBA diving. Impressively sleek and smooth, yet with a look of cruelty in its eyes.

“I’ll agree with you that Chief - as you call him - is a hard man, but as for tying him down, that's something I don’t think he’d agree to easily.”

Jim jerked back as if he’d been punched. His vision suddenly tunneled and he didn’t know if the ominous red glow he saw surrounding the man framed against the window was actually his aura or the result of the shift in Jim’s eyesight. 

He didn’t feel his nails as they curled tightly into his palms. He'd find out later that they'd drawn blood. 

“Unless you’d like to join us,” Hector continued. "I’ll admit Blair has his own charming qualities, but compared to you, he’s practically a child.” 

Hector stepped closer but Jim couldn’t move. He became fixated on the other man’s eyes as Hector lifted a hand and ran his elegant fingers along the side of Jim’s face. 

Hector apparently took Jim’s silence for agreement, acquiescence even, while Jim’s mind churned and his body solidified. Hector’s hand traveled from Jim’s face to his shoulder and then down further to caress his bicep. “There’s something wonderfully animalistic about a military man. They’re among my favorite kind of lover. I don’t mind telling you I’ve been with hundreds. Maybe there’s a few things we could teach each other.” 

Hector leaned in intimately close to whisper in Jim’s ear and the scent of expensive cologne practically choked him. “But don’t tell our dear Blair. He actually thinks he’s special enough for me to stop my wanderings. Of course, I wouldn’t mind having some beefcake with a little boy toy on the side.”

Before Hector could finish licking his lips, Jim’s neurons exploded like gunfire on Hamburger Hill. Hector’s accent-mangled speech, the stench of his cologne, the thick pumping of his heart sending blood like crude oil through his veins, the rasping of breath moving in and out of his lungs. And all the while Hector’s eyes glowed like embers in pitch black, nearly blinding him. 

The sound of the door opening just then broke through to Jim’s consciousness. 

“Hey, Jim, can you. . . “ 

At the sound of Blair’s voice, Jim came to himself and pushed Hector’s hand away. He grabbed the man’s collar in both fists and pushed him up against the wall of windows with enough force to shake the glass. 

Blair dropped the stack of books that he'd been barely managing to hang on to. He ran and tugged on the back of Jim’s T-shirt in an effort to pull him off of Hector. 

“What the hell, man!”

Jim didn't release his grip even fractionally. 

“Your friend has a serious problem,” Hector managed to force out. 

“No, you're the one with the problem. _Me.”_ Jim’s threat was barely contained in his clipped tone. “So I suggest you go back to wherever it is you came from and stay away from Sandburg. Don't even try to go anywhere near him because if you do, I'll be able to smell you. And then I'll come after you and show you how really animalistic I can be.” Jim curled his lip in a snarl before he let Hector loose. 

Blair stepped back when Hector dropped weak-kneed to the floor but didn't move to aid him. He just watched in shock as Hector straightened and adjusted his shirt. 

“I believe there has been a grievous misunderstanding between your burly friend and I. Once his testosterone levels have normalized, give me a calI,” Hector’s words were smooth but his delivery wobbled.

“No, I don’t believe I will,” Blair responded. “Jim is a pretty good judge of character.”

Hector gave a slight shrug of his shoulders then brushed past them and exited with marginally less poise than he’d entered. 

ooOOoo

“Are you going to explain to me what that was all about?” Blair’s eyes held a combination of anger, confusion and disbelief. But Jim saw pain there, too.

“I didn’t like his attitude.” Jim let his arms hang loosely, the heated rage of a moment ago dripping off of him like rain from a palm tree. 

“Attitude about what?”

Jim looked at Blair and heard his racing heart. He could practically feel his emotions warring inside him. He knew how loyal Blair was to him, but Jim had driven his lover away. Not many friendships could withstand something like that. Theirs wasn’t a normal relationship, however. Should he let Blair think he was a jerk or crush his spirit with the truth? Jim began to pace the floor like a caged tiger.

“Attitude about what, Jim?” Blair asked again, this time slower and with more deliberation, letting Jim know he wasn’t backing down without an honest answer. Jim’s formidable presence didn’t cow him. Like a tenacious ant that carried many times its own weight, Blair never let his own stature, age or inexperience keep him from going after what he wanted. 

After a few minutes Jim stopped his pacing and looked at him, taking in the complete openness in his friend’s eyes. He took a deep breath. “I wish I didn’t have to, Chief, but I guess I do.”

“Let’s sit down and talk about this.” Blair sat on the couch and invited Jim to do the same.

Jim sat and leaned forward, combing through his hair with hands, then straightened and looked at Blair, not wanting to miss a single reaction. He owed him that much. “He came on to me,” he told him flatly.

“What?” 

Jim heard Blair’s heart skip a beat and the small, sharp intake of breath, but he continued. “And he had some unpleasant ideas about you.”

”He did? Like what?” 

_‘Christ, Chief. Can’t you ever just let anything go?’_ Jim scrubbed a hand through his hair again and had an insane thought about what it would be like to run his hands through Blair’s long tangles instead of his own precision military cut. 

“Seems like you were a bit of a plaything to him,” Jim said, the words cutting his throat like shards of glass.

Blair sagged to the back of the couch and Jim watched his expression move from confusion to dejection and then to resigned acceptance. “I guess I should have realized.”

“Don’t go beating yourself up over it.”

“I mean, I should have realized a guy like that couldn’t have any real interest in someone like me. Hector Khumalo could have anyone he wanted. He’s attractive and fascinating. I was just so flattered . . . and turned on,“ Blair added.

Jim laid a hand on Blair’s knee and gave it a slight squeeze. “Don’t sell yourself short, Chief. Hector’s just an asshole.” 

“No, Jim. Someone like you couldn’t possibly understand. You’ve been the big hero type your whole life. I’ve always been an undersized nerd. And moving from place to place like I always did, I never really got a chance to fit in anywhere. Maybe that’s why I’m into studying different cultures so much. I’ve always been an outsider looking for a way in.”

The melancholy that seeped through Blair’s normally upbeat persona sent a shot of physical pain through Jim’s chest. He tried to focus on the ticking of wall clock and the rushing of cars on the street below to give him a respite from senses he didn't know how to handle, but nothing worked. All his faculties had converged on Blair. His hand moved up from Blair's knee to slip around his shoulders. 

Ordinarily, Jim would have asked his guide for direction but tonight it was Blair who seemed lost. 

“You belong here with me, don't you Chief?”

Jim felt Blair’s shoulders stiffen but then gradually relax beneath his arm and against his chest. It occurred to him that someone else might have found their position uncomfortably intimate but to him it just felt very, very right. 

“I guess I do at that. I'm mean, I am your guide.” 

Jim smiled at the slight lift in Blair’s tone, the more relaxed rhythm of his heart. He tipped his head to press his lips in the nest of curls on top of Blair’s head and felt rather than heard the soft hum that emanated from the back of Blair’s throat at the gesture. He took in the familiar woodsy scent of Blair's skin and allowed himself to calm down and enjoy it. 

“Have you ever been with a man?” Blair asked almost imperceptibly, but Jim heard it loud and clear. He instinctively knew he wasn't asking for study purposes. 

“Can't say that I have.”

“Have you ever thought about it?”

 _There goes that Sandburg persistence again,_ thought Jim. “If you really want to know, not until recently,” he admitted.

“What made you change your mind?”

Jim paused, not knowing how much more he could say. But he was the one who had ruined Blair’s relationship, tore a hole in his tenuous confidence. Maybe he should show him that he wasn't always the alpha male everyone made him out to be. 

“If you want to know the truth, it started when I heard you and Hector in bed together. I didn’t mean to listen. I tried to tune you out. I really did. But when I thought about him touching you, something changed. Like a light turning on, if you’ll excuse the phrase. So I’d lay in bed and allow myself to imagine.”

“You got turned on thinking of me having sex? Come on, Jim. You must have heard sounds, smelled things dozens of times when I’ve had women over.” 

“But this was different. This was you with another man. I mean . . . ” Jim looked around the apartment as if searching for something to help him say what he wanted to say. A note lying on the desk, one of Blair’s books opened to an opportune page. What he was experiencing was something entirely new and different. Completely unexpected. Yet how many times in the past few years had Blair pushed his limits, taken him somewhere within himself more incredible than he’d ever imagined? 

“Having sex with another man is nothing to be ashamed of,” Blair said. “In fact, in some societies male on male sex is considered superior to sex with a female. In Ancient Greece, sex with women was often reserved for procreation. True intimacy was seen as a province of men.”

Jim didn’t want to feel like he was a student in one of Blair’s classes just now, but he thought he’d go along with it. Academia was where Blair felt most comfortable. And that’s what mattered most to him now. Making Blair happy. After all, it was Blair who more often than not followed along to where Jim was comfortable - a shooting range, a murder scene, or even a morgue.

“Pederasty - a relationship between an older man and a younger one,” he heard himself say.

“Good one, Jim.” 

Jim felt rather than saw Blair’s smile. “With this sentinel thing, and you being my guide, I guess I’ve come to think of you as _mine._ ”

“That’s funny, because with you being the subject of my research, I’ve come to think of you as _mine._ ”

Jim was gratified Blair wasn’t offended that Jim had taken a proprietary interest in him. In fact, Jim was a little surprised that he wasn’t taken aback by Blair claiming Jim as his. “That’s a nice feeling - belonging,” he remarked quietly.

"Yes, it is," Blair responded.

Jim wasn’t taken aback either, when Blair’s hand strayed to his crotch and covered the bulge that had begun to grow beneath his jeans. Blair didn’t massage or squeeze, just let his hand rest there as if allowing Jim to get used to the sensation. A human making an offering to a wild thing to see if he might be accepted; to see if the feral creature could be tamed. 

Jim tilted his head back to rest on the edge of the couch and adjusted his seat, stretching out and widening his legs. “That’s a nice feeling, too.”

Jim heard Blair’s heart rate pick up in time to his own. He picked up another scent beneath the woodsy quality of Blair’s soap and aftershave that smelled amazingly sexy. Blair’s light and pleasant touch grew almost painful on his cock. But Blair seemed to know exactly what was happening with Jim’s super-charged senses. 

Blair turned his head to press his lips on Jim’s jaw. “We’ll go slow, Jim. Just breathe.”

Jim responded as if Blair had gently tugged on an invisible, velvet leash around his neck. “Whatever you say, Chief. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. If you follow my lead.” 

Blair moved and Jim followed him cautiously, then more confidently, through the steps of an erotic dance - mirroring the teasing of his breath, the heat of his mouth, the pleasure/pain of his touch. For a while he thought he heard the wild beats of the drum music Blair favored, but then realized it was his own blood pulsing with abandon through his veins. 

He heard someone cry out and felt the instinctive urge to search and rescue, only to realize he’d be rescuing himself. _‘Christ, Chief, what have you done to me?’_ His sentinel senses hadn’t prepared him for anything like this. 

When at last Jim came apart in Blair’s arms, he thought how Hector Khumalo, despite all his advanced learning, had been such a fool. And how Blair was infinitely wiser. And how lucky Jim was to have Blair as his guide.

 

FIN


End file.
